


And Be Your Sweetest Self

by LadyStark28



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Depression, Gen, Heavy Angst, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyStark28/pseuds/LadyStark28
Summary: Wesley gives everything to the Fleet, until nothing's left for himself.





	And Be Your Sweetest Self

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t mean for this piece to be so dark, and I feel bad about starting off the month with a big old helping of angst - I swear, it was not my intention! This is my very first time ever writing for any kind of “event,” and I sheepishly admit that I signed up thinking, “I like Star Trek and I have “Hallelujah” on my phone’s playlist! This’ll be a breeze!” 
> 
> Well, Dear Readers, a breeze it certainly was not, especially when I realized that Monsieur Cohen was a bit of a downer on his best day. I already knew “Hallelujah” would get into my piece somewhere, but when I heard “Field Commander Cohen,” all I could think was, “My god, this is about Wesley.”
> 
> I know, I know; opinions on Wesley Crusher tend to fall squarely into the love/hate camps. If you hate Wesley, I’m not going to try to change your mind, so you may want to skip this one and just wait for tomorrow’s entry.
> 
> Personally, I’ve always related to Wesley. When I was younger, I thought it was so cool that a kid (like me!) got to live on a starship and visit other planets. And yes, I liked that he got to save the ship and be the hero every once in a while. As I grew alongside the character, I related to him in other ways. He got praise and recognition and special privileges, but he was also, if you read between the lines (and add in some of my own teen headcanon), a neurotic, anxiety-ridden mess. When he did well, the adults were nice to him, and when he didn’t (or at least didn’t do well enough), they treated him like shit. While Wesley’s ultimate fate isn’t perfect (even the actor jokes about “running off in the Traveler’s white van”), I consider it a win because he finally got to be himself, instead of running ragged trying to be what everyone else told him to be. 
> 
> All of this brings us back to my actual writing piece. I modeled Wesley’s feelings after my own, and I know from experience that a lifetime of struggling with anxiety and depression (with little-to-no support) can lead to some pretty dark places. Having said that...
> 
> PLEASE HEED THE TRIGGER WARNING! 
> 
> If thoughts of self-harm and/or suicide are upsetting to you, PLEASE DO NOT CONTINUE READING. Ultimately, this piece is meant to get across the message that no matter how tired and hopeless you feel, life is worth living, and you have the right to walk away from toxic people/situations. If Wesley can do it, so can you.
> 
> If you are struggling with mental illness, please, get help. If you don’t get help from the first person, try someone else. If that doesn’t work, try someone different, and keep trying until you get what you need. The links below are a good place to start:
> 
> www.nimh.nih.gov
> 
> www.mentalhealth.gov
> 
> www.nami.org
> 
> This piece was inspired by Leonard Cohen’s “Field Commander Cohen” with a dash of “Hallelujah” thrown in. Also, for any fellow Linkin Park fans, see if you can spot the “One More Light” references.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think in the comments!

 

And Be Your Sweetest Self

 

Wesley Crusher knows exactly who he is, and in that, he’s luckier than most.

 

Fleet brat (on both sides). Prodigy/genius (they mean the same thing when you’re young). Thorn in the Captain’s side (he’s too honest, too inexperienced, too much a reminder of his father). Ever-cheerful ray of starshine (an obvious facade, but it keeps the adults satisfied).

 

The universal truth that Starfleet encompasses all good things is coded in his DNA, infused in his blood before he’s born. Dying in the line of duty is nothing less than the highest honor, and no one bothers to consider that a newly-fatherless five-year-old might feel differently.

 

Yes, he knows who he is, and he resents his brain reminding him what he’s _not_.

 

Starfleet isn’t his path, but he carries on anyway. There’s simply no other choice. Not when the captain demands it, and his mother expects it, and Riker encourages it. Not when he was raised to step neatly into the empty space left by his father, fitting his softer, sweeter, more wondering (and wandering) form into Jack’s shadow.

 

Wesley knows he wasn’t born for command, but he goes through the motions anyway because it’s a means to an end - a promised career where he pretends he cares about some distant admiral’s orders, and the Fleet gives him ships and labs and warp coils and he can reach for the stars on his own terms. He allows the adults to convince him this is what he wants.

 

_I knew your father._ Those are the first words the captain says to him with any sort of kindness on this shiny new ship, a vessel bigger and better than the _Stargazer_ in every way, except that the First Officer chair is filled by a man with sharp blue eyes in place of Commander Crusher’s warm brown ones (later, Wesley decides the best part of wearing his cranberry-red ensign’s uniform is that it makes his hazel eyes reflect that brown, instead of his maternal Howard-side green.)

 

He does his best, promising to stand guard against the galaxy’s darkness, working tirelessly to expand the Fleet’s light. His father was a good man, and Wesley’s heart swells when someone compares the two of them. He seeks out those moments, wills them into being. He wonders if the captain was kinder, gentler, when Jack was around, because surely the father he knew, who carried him through the air and kissed his skinned knees, would never be friends with the captain now, stern and humorless as he was.

 

Genius does have its privileges, and Wesley doesn’t mind enjoying them. What other teenager has a Galaxy-class vessel at their fingertips, or the rigorous attention of the flagship’s command staff? He chases praise, learns to recognize it in Data’s raised eyebrows, and Worf’s terse nod, and Commander Riker’s conspiratorial grin. He flies high enough to almost forget his weary prayer to be nothing more than regular, ordinary, _normal_. To wake up and dress in comfortable civilian clothes and fool around in school and get home in time to help two loving parents put dinner on the table.

 

Instead, he’s forced to requisition a new uniform every few months when he outgrows the old one, and he eats in Ten-Forward whenever he can, desperate to escape the sinking loneliness of his solitary quarters. Every move he makes carries such _weight_ ; a single misstep could drown out the approval he needs to survive. He remembers with photographic clarity the irritated twist to Riker’s mouth when Wes asked about Captain Okana’s renegade lifestyle, and he makes sure to never bring up life outside the Fleet again.

 

He trains himself to not feel anything real, because that way leads to monsters and madness (he’ll get plenty of both by the time he’s twenty). His own dreams, too, have to go, buried in the same transparent coffin where he carefully placed his beloved stuffed sea turtle to keep his father company on his final voyage. Sometimes he wishes he had the turtle back, but that’s foolish; it was cremated with Jack’s body. When he makes it back to Earth, he could ride over to the Sausalito Cetacean Institute and get a replacement, but there’s work to do and tests to take and squadron leaders to follow, and he’s far too old for dolls.

 

Warp coils, on the other hand, are perfectly acceptable comfort objects. He does need them for his experiments, but really he just likes to touch them (Geordi has a fit when he catches him, citing safety regulations). So much potential in such a smooth, sinuous shape - the raw power of propulsion, enough to send a ship full of curious souls across the galaxy and back.

 

When the Traveler arrives, Wesley’s world tilts in the most exhilarating, terrifying way. The possibilities for enhanced warp travel aside, he realizes for the first time that he could explore the galaxy without Starfleet. For a too-brief moment, just being himself and nothing more - not an officer, or a prodigy, or the son of a dead hero - just _himself_ is enough. But the Traveler also leaves him, and Counselor Troi would probably connect Wesley’s forsaken sorrow to Jack’s death, if he didn’t cross the ship to avoid her when he sensed his emotional control slipping from his tight grasp.

 

***

 

Following a dead man is exhausting, and eventually it catches up with him. His carefully crafted life comes crashing down with a dizzying speed that rivals the _Enterprise_ at top warp. He had no idea it could all go so wrong so _quickly_ ; by the time the plasma trail settles, he’s on a bench in the middle of campus, watching the captain’s self-righteous boots marching away.

 

The accident and its aftermath prove to be the catalyst, the jagged blade that leaves him reeling, untethered. All he knows dies away, cold and broken, and he can fix almost anything, but he can’t fix this.

 

His mail privileges are revoked, and no one on campus will talk to him, so he talks to his father. Not out loud, because he doesn’t need to be branded a lunatic along with a liar and a snitch. He wonders if perhaps he _is_ going crazy - he keeps up his side of the conversation, but his father never talks back.

 

And he doesn’t sleep, because Josh always shows up and won’t talk to him either.

 

And he doesn’t eat, because everything tastes like ashes and he hurts all the time.

 

And he doesn’t cry, because an ocean of tears won’t wash away the bloodstains his grief leaves behind.

 

And halfway through another endless night, Wesley carefully packs everything he owns into one small box, and leaves it on his desk alongside his folded cadet uniform and a letter addressed to Dr. Beverly Crusher, CMO, _USS Enterprise_.

 

He slips silently past the MP’s, through the main gate and out into the city, heading for the rocky shore of the bay. The water draws him like a secret chord; a strange sensation, because he’s never had a penchant for music, whatever the Traveler might say. The water’s waiting, silver tides rolling against unyielding earth, and he’s _so tired_ , he just wants to slide in and let the light go out.

 

He trudges toward the inky shore with his heart in his throat, trying to recall exactly how many seconds it will take, when a glint on the water’s surface catches his downcast eyes. He waits for it to disappear, but it shines on, and then he sees another near it, and another and another. He stares hard at the flickering lights for a maddeningly long time, because he knows he’s seen them before - could see them whenever he wanted, once upon a time - but he can’t remember where.

 

When he finally lifts his eyes, Wesley’s soul lifts too, because here, at last, are all his desperate prayers made manifest in millions of stars reflected off the dark water. He falls to his knees before the firmament, allowing his memory to conjure a man in a red uniform lifting a small boy in his arms on this very same beach, making a game of naming the pictures in the sky.

 

He hears himself cry out in the night, and it’s the first truthful sound to come off his tongue since his father died. He sees now how all his other selves were wrong, how every _Yes, sir_ and _Aye, Captain,_ every eager obedience, every word of his Academy application - these were only lingering echoes of a man who loved him before the Fleet. For the first time since he watched the captain hand a folded flag to his mother, Wesley understands that he can honor his father’s memory and still be himself.

 

Gazing at the stars over the bay, he reads another truth as well - that each star has its place, and when even one dies out, the entire fabric of the galaxy dims, and the constellations become unrecognizable. Lyra isn’t the same without Vega, and Cygnus can’t soar without Deneb, and if he were to go to sleep beneath the water, he’d never get to see the miracle of the night sky again.

 

He finds a spot a safe distance from the beckoning surf, and rests on his back with his hands over his heart. Even when he can’t hold his eyes open any longer, he knows the stars are still there, lighting the way for anyone who needs them. When dawn breaks, he’ll catch a transport to the _Enterprise_ , following the trail of stars home. He’ll stand before his mother, and the captain, and his father’s ghost, and let them know who he is, every quiet word blazing with truth. He’s one flickering light in a galaxy of stars, and the galaxy doesn’t care if he wears a uniform; it only cares that he shines on.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) You will be too much for some people. Those are not your people.
> 
> 2) If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.


End file.
